


Present and Absent

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Genre: 5x15, Alexandria Safe-Zone, Explicit Language, First Kiss, M/M, Season 5 Spoilers, Try, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 11:29:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3608454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl tries to make Rick remember the important things. Scene taking place directly after the events of "Try." Spoilers for Season 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Present and Absent

**Author's Note:**

> I had to get out my feels somewhere. * sigh *
> 
> Tumblr links, if you're interested:  
> [MAE's Rickyl Fics and Recs](http://maerickyl.tumblr.com/): Where you can find a list of my fanfic, fanfic recs, and snippets of works in progress.  
> [Michelle A. Emerlind](http://michelleaemerlind.tumblr.com/): My general tumblr where I put stuff? And things? And just whatever I want.

When Rick opens his eyes, Daryl is sitting on the bench underneath the window in the far corner. The shades have been pulled down until there is only one little strip of light shining in from the street lamps, but Rick can tell Daryl’s form even in this amount of darkness. That’s the first thing he registers--Daryl’s head turned toward the window, the crossbow sitting ready in his lap, one knee pulled up and the other stretched out.

The rest of Rick’s surroundings flood in around him, getting increasingly more important. The softness under him means a bed. The distance from him to Daryl and the slats of wood smooth in the low light mean a house. The position of the furniture and the bare walls mean _his_ house. He claws in a sharp breath that resonates deep in his lungs. He realizes with a sudden clarity that he hadn’t expected to wake up at all.

The breath draws Daryl’s gaze to him like a moth to light. Daryl grunts, harsh and wild in the space. “Mornin’, Governor,” Daryl grates out and Rick groans. Daryl looks back to the window and after a beat says, “Went kind of crazy out there.”

“Morning?” Rick asks.

Daryl shrugs, his shoulders lifting in the darkness. “Technically. Around three a.m.”

Rick scoffs. “They let you in.”

“Nah,” Daryl looks down at this crossbow. “Aaron did. Ain’t supposed to, though.”

Rick blinks and focuses on smoothing out the muscles in his face, refusing to let them knot and tangle so early after waking up. “Aaron,” he says and he knows his voice is judgemental, heavy, and hissing.

“Jessie,” Daryl responds in the same tone.

Rick blinks again and stares up at the ceiling. “Her husband’s beating her,” he says as if it’s an excuse.

Daryl grunts. “Yeah, I know.”

Rick swings his head back to Daryl. “You knew?”

“Ain’t hard to tell if you’re lookin’.” Even in the blackness, Rick can see the nervous tick of Daryl’s jaw, his lips and teeth moving to chew nothing.

“You don’t want to stop it?”

“Can’t stop it,” Daryl says easily. “She can. I can’t. You can’t.”

“Bullshit,” Rick calls and returns to the ceiling.

“What’s your gameplan, Rick?” Daryl asks him suddenly and then stands, starts pacing with quiet wildness. “What the hell were you thinking? Jessie’s pretty face got you so turned around into your own ass you can’t see when your people need you?”

Rick scoffs. “What do you want me to do?”

“Think about your priorities,” Daryl growls out.

“Oh, like you’re doing. Running off with Aaron.”

“Don’t give me that fucking _horseshit_ ,” Daryl says, pointing at Rick and starting to pace faster. “They got guards lined up at every corner of the house. Maggie is out there right now beggin’ for you to stay. Do you even want to?”

Rick shakes his head, but not in answer to the question. He stares at the darkness above him, trying to make out the little bumps in the ceiling, the shapes of nightmares and demons. “He dead?”

“No,” Daryl says and sits down heavily right beside Rick on the bed. “He ain’t, but he’s gonna be if he don’t leave you well enough alone.” Daryl stares at the crossbow in his hand and Rick stares at Daryl.

“They’re wrong,” Rick says softly to him. “They’re all wrong.”

Daryl turns to him and this close, Rick can see his face in the darkness, can see the frame of his hair where it falls, can’t quite make out the color, but can see the shape of his eyes, the expression in them. “You even care if she dies?” he asks.

Rick wrinkles his brow. “Jessie?” he asks.

“Mmm hmm,” Daryl says, chewing again. “You even see her?”

Rick shakes his head again and goes back to the ceiling. “I have feelings for her,” he says, perfectly knowing what he’s doing. But while it’s supposed to be deep and cutting, supposed to get Daryl to _leave_ , all it does is make him laugh, hard and low in his throat. Daryl nods, but he lays down on the bed beside Rick, his gaze right where Rick’s is on the ceiling.

“No, you don’t.”

“I do,” Rick says, growling it out.

“She family?” Daryl asks and when Rick tries to pause, Daryl presses. “ _She family_?”

“No!” Rick says, snapping in the darkness.

“She’s not us,” Daryl reminds him. “We’re us. And she ain’t. Don’t forget about us.”

“Is _Aaron_?” Rick asks. “Is he family?”

“Nah,” Daryl says easily. “Could be. But ain’t. Not yet.”

Rick grunts. “Doesn’t matter, though. I have to protect her. And I have to lead this place. Deanna...she’s not going to make it. We know she’s not.”

“No,” Daryl says and sighs. “She’s not. But they aren’t your responsibility. Jessie isn’t.”

“She is.”

“She _isn’t_.”

“She _is_.”

“Why?”

Rick tries to fight back the locking of his jaw, the quietness bubbling in his throat, the urge to punch Daryl and have it out. “I see Lori all over this place,” he says instead.

Daryl blinks. “You _see_ her.”

Rick laughs, high and crazy, and he reaches forward and pinches the bridge of his nose. He calms himself until there is only the intake of air and the outtake. “Not seeing her. Thinking about her. This house...this neighborhood. All these _pretty_ things. Cocktail parties and cookies and pasta and...all these things. These _Lori things_. Bringing stuff to the neighbors...introducing Carl to playmates...being a family. I see her everywhere.”

“Jessie remind you of her?”

Rick nods, so very slowly. “And Carol. Before when I felt like she cared. And Sophia. Jacqui. Dale. Andrea. Hershel. All the people we’ve lost. I see them all…”

Daryl turns his head to Rick, forces Rick to look at him. “What about the ones we _haven’t_ lost? What about them? You’re chasing shadows, Rick. And we need you. We _need you_.”

“No one _needs me_ ,” Rick spits out. “Deanna doesn’t _need_ me. This place doesn’t _need_ me. Michonne doesn’t _need_ me. You don’t--” He breaks himself off and shakes his head hard. Daryl blinks. “I want…” Rick starts, but can’t quite seem to get it out. “I want it to be like it was. I want to go back. But I can’t.” He breaks off as his voice quivers. “It will _never go back_. These people they think it will. But it _won’t_. It _can’t_. It’s never going to. Daryl...this place is going to burn. It’s going to burn to the ground and nothing anyone can do with ever stop it. Things can’t be _normal_. They can’t be _fine_. I...I hate them. I hate all of them. For saying that it could be.” He sits up suddenly and puts his head in his hands. “I wanted this. From the beginning, I would have _appreciated this_. This place. These houses. Those goddamn walls. They don’t _appreciate_ anything. Not this place. Not us. Not _me_.” Rick turns to Daryl, stares him down. “And I hate them for it. And I’m _jealous_. That these _fuckers_ get to walk around this town and they don’t care. They don’t see it. All I wanted was my family. All he has is his family. And he hits them.”

“Rick,” Daryl says, as soft as a summer breeze. He reaches for Rick, but Rick hits his hand away.

“And I hate Aaron. I hate him. _I hate him_. And Eric, too. They are...they have…” He shakes his head. “You don’t get it, either,” Rick says, hard and cold. “None of you do. I’m the only one with kids. Sasha doesn’t have them. Michonne doesn’t have them. You don’t have them. Carol doesn’t anymore. It’s me. It’s _me_ and _my_ kids.”

“Bullshit,” Daryl says, growling and sits up next to Rick. “Those are my kids, too, and you know it.”

“Not like they’re mine. I have to…” He holds his hand out, halfway to his chest and then pulls it back so that it’s in front of him and then changes his mind and turns it back inward, presses it against the center of his chest. “I can’t be what I want to be. I can only be what I have to be.”

Daryl swallows. “If you let go of who you want to be you let go of who you are.” Daryl reaches slowly, so incrementally carefully, for Rick. He tucks a strand of Rick’s hair between his index finger and middle finger, brushes it back to lay with the rest of its family. “You gotta stop grieving for things that haven’t happened. And stop thinking about the things that did, too.”

Rick shakes his head. “I can’t. Because I can see the storm coming.”

“So can I,” Daryl says. “We all can. Doesn’t mean that you can forget about us, Rick. We’re living. Your family is living. _I’m_ living.”

“This is easier.”

“I know,” Daryl says and scoffs. “Fighting over a girl. Pretty standard. Letting Shane levels of rage in? Pretty standard, too. But that’s not who _you_ are. That’s not _Rick Grimes_.”

“I can’t be the _Rick Grimes_ you want me to be.”

“Why?” Daryl says and his voice is so quiet Rick can barely hear it in the darkness.

“Because if I have something,” Rick says, just as quietly, “I have something to lose.”

“You already got it,” Daryl says and smiles, his face so close now Rick can watch the transformation happen, his mouth tilting upwards just at the ends. “Ain’t no way to stop it now.”

“I care if you die,” Rick says and if the corners of his eyes are wet, Daryl doesn’t say anything. “I see you. _You’re_ family.”

“I know I am,” Daryl says.

“I can’t lose you,” Rick tries to say, but the sentence gets lodged in this throat and won’t come out. Daryl, though, just nods, as if he already knows all of Rick’s words, knows everything that Rick is ever thinking.

“I’m here,” Daryl says and then he leans forward, touches his lips fleetingly to Rick’s. It feels quick like the birth and death of lightning, but slow like suns forming, too. It’s everything, Rick realizes, the perfect example of timeliness and he opens his mouth to Daryl, feels Daryl’s tongue on his, feels Daryl’s hand on his neck, the other braced beside them on the bed. Daryl tilts his head and sinks into it and Rick does too, holds on for dear life because that might just be what this is.

Daryl stops slowly, draws himself physically away but doesn’t leave Rick’s mind and will never leave his spirit, fused into it and melted in. “There’s a shitstorm about to happen,” Daryl tells him and sighs, looking at the window again. “I don’t know where we’re going to be tomorrow. If we’re going to be tomorrow. Wanted you to remember, though. To know.”

Rick nods just ever so slowly and then sighs. “They know I’m awake?”

“Probably. Imagine they’re coming.” Daryl looks at him in the darkness and smiles just slightly. He puts his hand on the side of Rick’s neck and dips his mouth just once more to Rick’s. “Let’s go face them.”


End file.
